The Smoking Dog

Nothing is ever as easy as it seems.

The Pirate and I went over the hill for a bb gun and some electric dog fence. We came back with a paintball gun, some electric dog fence, extra wire, little plastic thingummies that hold the wire onto the metal fence posts, cinder blocks and some cucumbers.

While I busied myself doing some work, The Pirate fastened up the yellow plastic bits and started stringing the electric fence. I came down presently to help him figure out how to keep the elecric wire away from the fence that the chickens would touch. I came up with using a few of the hundreds of running feet of 1x2" board we have. We used 2' lengths with a hole drilled in each end and wired them to the existing fence to keep it separated from the electric wire.

By the time Peaches came home from swim practice, we'd done the little chicken yard. And there it is - neat as a pin, well protected and just right for five chickens. I even tested it by stepping out of one of my sandals and touching it. Yup. It's on, ready to keep our hens safe from those horrible dogs. The sad thing is that the poor hens were so traumatized that none of them dared venture out of the coop. That might go on for a few days. If it lasts past Thursday, I'm just going to go into the coop with the Blue Broom of Justice and boot them all out into the yard. It's too fine out for them to stay inside.

As it is, I'm secretly waiting for what I know is coming: the first time a dog come sniffing around the little yard, thinking it's going to get a handy morsel. First, it can't get in from under the coop the way they did in the other yard, because the Pirate blocked those off with cinder blocks and plywood. Then it'll try the fence. And it'll get a shock that will make it decide that kibble's looking awfully good, and go away with its tail crinkled and black.

Hey, Joe! Where You Going With That Gun In Your Hand?

While I was out of town, dogs broke into our chicken yard, killing 6 out of 16 of our chickens. Sunday morning, one of those dogs was back, and before it could get in, the Pirate chased it up the driveway. Yesterday, we went down to shut up the chickens for the night, only to find out that the dog/dogs had chewed THROUGH the chicken wire, gotten in and killed at least four of our chickens. Our rooster is nowhere to be found.

One of the five remaining has puncture wounds, but she's likely to recover. Considering how steeply egg production fell off the last time this happened, I don't expect any eggs at all for quite a while.

In the meantime, I'm about to do something I never thought I'd do. I'm about to go over the hill and buy a BB gun. For the time being, we'll be putting the five remaining hens into the smaller yard, which is a little more heavily fortified (two layers of poultry netting, one a much heavier-duty than the other, and bricks around the entire thing). They'll be in that yard until we entirely tear down and re-do the other yard to make it completely dog-proof.

I spent a lot of last night crying. Today, I plan to shoot any dog I see on my property. My two girls hate dogs. I never thought it would come to this.